Saturday, August 1, 2015

What to make of Mitsubishi Materials’ Apology for WWII Crimes?

A slightly different version has been posted on Asia Times.Seventy years after the end
of WWII, Mitsubishi Materials staged a high profile apology to James Murphy, 94-year old survivor and former American POW. The
ceremony took place last month at the Museum of Tolerance of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, appropriately the museum established to
remind the world of the European Holocaust.

Apparently the company
representative of Mitsubishi sold the former American POW on the depth of his
remorse and the sincerity of his regret such that Murphy was pleased to accept
on behalf of all the American prisoners that toiled as slaves in wartime Japan.
Approximately 12,000 American POWs were shipped to Japan to fill the labor supply
shortage and about 10% did not live long enough to be repatriated home.

The well-covered event won
accolades from mainly the western media for being the first Japanese company to
step forward*, acknowledge and apologize for the wrongs committed by Japan
during WWII.Some even called it a
“landmark” apology. Many expressed the hope that other Japanese companies will
follow suit and perhaps even persuade the Abe government to do the same.

The company spokesman went on
to say that Mitsubishi hopes to apologize to POWs of other nationalities and to
negotiate with various Chinese groups with an agreement that includes cash
settlement. Altogether, about 39,000 Chinese were taken to Japan for slave
labor. Almost 20% died in various labor camps.

Of these, 3765 Chinese
prisoners were known to work in the mines belonging to Mitsubishi’s predecessor
entity. At least 722 did not survive the war. As reported in Japan Times
and other sources, the company was to offer RMB100,000 (around $16,000) to each
survivor or to their heirs since not too many are likely to be around with the
passage of 70 years.

So far so good, but the issue
is not as straightforward as suggested by the narrative so far.Even though Mitsubishi seems to be the first
company* to apologize and offer compensation 70 years after the end of WWII,
there are a lot of indicators to suggest they did not do this willingly.

It has taken 70 years because
Japanese government and companies have been ducking behind the San Francisco
Peace Treaty of 1951 and the normalization agreement between China and Japan
entered in 1972.

Japan has always claimed that
the 1951 peace treaty got them off the hook from future obligation to pay any
indemnity. Indeed, when American POWs filed suit for compensation, the U.S. courts
struck them down because of the terms of the peace treaty stipulated forfeiting
American citizens’ right to seek damages. But the line of reasoning does not
apply to Chinese prisoners, since neither governments of China, based in
Beijing or based in Taipei, were invited to attend this conference nor did
either one ratify the treaty.

After the war, the allied
countries investigated and assessed the war damage inflicted by Japan; the
commission came up with a reparation sum of $54 billion to be paid by Japan.
China as the nation that fought Japan the longest and suffered the greatest devastation
sought the largest share but their claims were basically ignored. Just the sum of
the claims by the rapacious western powers, namely U.K., the U.S., the USSR,
France and Australia together, exceeded 100%. Ironically, the allies fought
together but could not agree on how the spoils of war should be divided. The
findings and conclusions were basically set aside and forgotten.

By the time of the San
Francisco conference, Japan had already become a potential U.S. ally in the
developing cold war and the matter of indemnity was perfunctorily dealt with.
Asian countries that attended the conference got some reparation in the order
of a few hundred millions dollars. China and Taiwan in absentia were given official
title to their possession of the Japanese assets left by the departed Japanese.
Even the then prime minister Yoshida of Japan admitted that Japan got off easy.

In contrast, when China lost
a two-month war to Japan in 1894, Japan grabbed Taiwan and other islands and
demanded harsh indemnity as stipulated in the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed in
1895. In total, China paid the equivalent of ten thousand tons of silver over a
three-year period. With one brief military adventure, Japan enriched their
government coffers by more than four times their then annual revenue. No wonder
when Japan invaded China in 1937, their militarist leaders expected to own the
country in a matter of months.

Concurrent with Japan signing
the SFPT, Japan also entered into a security treaty with the U.S. The five-article
treaty contained only a few hundred words and basically gave the U.S. the right
to station military forces on Japan in exchange for protecting the security of
Japan against “irresponsible militarism” existing in the world. The treaty gave
both signatories plenty of latitude for interpretation and subsequent re-interpretation.

Just as the coupled treaties
in 1951 protected Japan from the personal grievances of Americans that suffered
from Japan’s brutality, the normalization between China and Japan in 1972 gave
Japan cover to reject claims from China. Conveniently, the1972 joint communiqué
is subjected to “one document, two interpretations.” China’s official
interpretation is that the government waived claims to WWII reparation from
Japan but nothing about the people’s right to file claims against Japan.

Chinese complaints
representing persons and groups began to be filed in Japan in earnest in the
‘90s. In 2007 the supreme court of Japan made a final ruling that dismissed all
the suits on the grounds that the joint communiqué rendered the suits moot.
However, the court found atrocities described by the litigants sufficiently appalling
that they recommended to the Japanese companies being sued to settle the
disputes amicably and somehow make the complaints whole. Unfortunately but not
surprisingly, nothing much has happened.

Beginning in 2008, some of
the attorneys representing the Chinese victims began to file their complaints
against Japanese companies in the courts in China. In February 2014, the courts
in China notified the principals of the dispute that they agreed to hear the
case. Suddenly, companies such as Mitsubishi took notice and Mitsubishi Materials
in particular began to offer to settle.

The calculation of risks and
rewards for stalling and stiffing the Chinese victims has changed. China has
become or about to become the largest economy in the world and the Japanese
companies have too much at stake in this market to risk losing in a Chinese
court.* In addition, good will from the people of China now has value.

When Mitsubishi Materials
began to publicize their willingness to settle the Chinese claims against the
company, the reactions inside China were mixed ranging from elation to condemnation. Some
praised the apparent intention to pay a significant sum to the victims and saw
this as a breakthrough in a long stalemate.

Others challenge the
sincerity behind the offer pointing out that the company has been quick to
inform the media of their intentions but has yet to meet with the
groups filing the grievances and begin negotiations. They wonder if Mitsubishi
will actually pay up. Still other groups expressed dissatisfaction in the
wording of Mitsubishi’s apology.

When the people in China
began to understand the legal remedies available from the western style of the rule
of law, thousands joined various groups to file their complaints. But they did
not realize that the wheels of justice grind at snail’s pace. By now the
numbers that have survived the ravages of time have dwindled to a handful.

A number of lawyers in China have emerged to allege that they represent certain victims
and are looking to manage a piece of the pie. It remains to be seen if that
piece of the pie is real or illusory.

Heretofore Japan has been
most skillful in bending historical facts to their advantage. The Peace Museum
of Hiroshima serves to remind the world that the people of Japan have been the
only victims of the atomic bomb but no explanation can be found to describe the
events that led to the dropping of the bomb.

Ironically, Japan has applied
for World Heritage designation on some of the mines as symbol of Japan’s
emergence from feudal state into a modern one, including some belonging to
Mitsubishi. Because of vigorous protest from S. Korea, Japan has grudgingly
agreed to post wording at those sites indicating that slave labor from Korea
were used in Japan’s march toward modernity. It’s doubtful that there will be
signs onsite to inform visitors that WWII prisoners also toiled in some of
these mines under inhumane conditions.

Japan’s inability to face
history fully and make a clean breast of all the atrocities they have committed
must be part of their genetic make up. They obviously need help. The latest
effort to remind Japan of its past is a new webpage called 10,000 cries for
justice, www.10000cfj.org. This
bilingual website is a repository of thousands of letters written by the Chinese
in the ‘90s that provided eyewitness accounts of atrocities by the Japanese
troops during the war, and coincidentally posted just days after the Mitsubishi
deal came to public attention.

This is a powerful
documentation of heinous acts committed by Japan including bayoneting infants,
raping and then disemboweling women, decapitations, live vivisection experiments
on human subjects, dropping of chemical and biological bombs on Chinese
villages and many other acts against humanity.

The Abe government wants to
forget all that. In fact he wants to rewrite Article 9 of Japan’s constitution so that Japan can become a full-fledged
military power again—perhaps becoming a new member of “irresponsible
militarism”? China won’t forget. Korea won’t forget. The Philippines and other
parts of Asia won’t forget. Can the U.S. ignore history?

President Obama should remind
Abe that the bilateral security agreement obligates the U.S. to protect Japan
from irresponsible militarism not for Japan to repeat history and become one.

____________________________
* As I reported in another blog, the first lawsuit the Chinese won on a WWII related dispute with a Japanese company and actually collected on the damages in 2014, taking nearly 70 years and over the efforts of three generations. The ruling of this case from a Shanghai court must weigh on the minds of other Japanese companies as they face litigations stemming from WWII.

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About George Koo

George came to the U.S. as a child from China, grew up in Seattle and educated at MIT, Stevens Institute and Santa Clara Univ.
Dr. Koo has recently retired from a world leading advisory services firm where he advised clients on their China strategies and business operations. He is founder and former managing director of International Strategic Alliances.
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Dr. Koo is a frequent speaker in various public forums on China and U.S. China bilateral relations. He writes for Pacific News Service (New America Media) on issues relating to Chinese Americans and to U.S.-China relations.
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